In Shelley's opinions, religions, social, and rolitical, crude as they often were, and everywhere expressed with an unwise reckless vehemence, there was much that might reasonably offend; and they not only on their own account roused against him a storm of obloquy, but made him throughout life the accredited mark of the most foul and malicious slanders. To this chiefly it is to be attributed that, whilst be lived, his genius met with no wide appreciation; but since, it has been amply recognized, and perhaps no writer of his time at this day ranks higher on the whole than lie. In sustained lyrical impetuosity Shelley surpasses every other writer; his diction is not more remarkable for its opulence than for the expressive subtlety and precision with which it defines the nicest refinements of feeling and thought; and his page flashes with imagery like a royal robe rich with gems. But too often, while lie dazzles, he also bewilders; he is fond of supersubtle abstractions, timmbstantial as clouds or dreams; and frequently in reading him we seem merely to be looking on wreaths of rainbow-colored mist. This want of clear and firm outlines is more or less felt throughout all his larger works, with the single exception of The Cenci, in which a terrible story of real life is dramatized with consum mate vigor and directness of treatment. As to the matter of the rest of his poems, they concern themselves, for the most part, not with the world as it is or has been, but with a perfected world which is to be. Shelley is the vales of the future, as Scott is the poet of the past. Of the charge of atheism against Shelley it is enough to say that it
rests mainly on Ills boyish poem of Queen Nab; that this he did not himself give to the world; and that when, in •1821, it was surreptitiously published. lie issued an express protest against his being held answerable for any opinions set forth in it. In his later works a vague pantheism seems indicated; and one or two passages occur which fairly admit of a purely theistic interpretation. Perhaps the most complete edition of Shelley's poems is that by R. H. Shepherd (1875). A selection from his letters. with translations ancl prose essays, appeared in 1840, Sec Mcdwin's Life of Shelley (1849); Trelawney's Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Baron (Lhnd. 1858); the Shelley Memorials, by lady Shelley (1859); Shelley's Early Life, by D. MacCarthy (1872); and Shelley : A Critical Biography, by G. Barnet Smith (1877).
By common testimony of all who l•,etv Minn, Shelley, who was held up to execration as a perfect monster of iniquity, was on. of the purest, gentlest, most lovable of men; of the tenderest privato affections, and, beyond the immediate circle of these, of the largest flowing charity. The passim! of philanthropy expressed in his writings found as practical an expression in his daily life as if he had never made any very great profession of it. episode of his first seems more or less awkward for him; but the one passienate frailty of a boy can scarcely be held a serious blemish on a man \those whole subsequent life was exceptional in virtue and beneficence.